Page 72 of To Touch A Silent Fury (The Bride of Eavenfold #1)

Tani

I was already awake, staring out at the foggy dawn, when the door opened.

I tensed, eyeing the candlestick over the fireplace to use as a weapon.

No one had replaced Foxlin. My door had been unguarded all night, the perfect opportunity for someone to slip a knife between my ribs.

But it was only Plonius, the tailor, and he bustled in with an arm of cosmetics and a handful of ribbons.

I stopped looking at the candlestick, but I did not relax.

Plonius gave me a nod without really looking, then placed his items on the vanity table and tapped the chair.

This was it, then. The morning of the wrong wedding. I sat heavily into the seat and looked at Plonius in the looking glass.

Last night I had washed the blood off in the bath and sat in it longer than I should have.

It helped my pain somewhat, but I didn’t stay in it for comfort.

I sat there, holding myself, because I didn’t want to get out and face the empty bed, or have to look beneath the pink soapy water and see my bruises .

He stared at my reflection. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some.”

Plonius forced a smile. “It’s an exciting day. I can understand.”

I said nothing. Hanindred slept still, and it unnerved me. How much domil had they given him? Where was he? Was Lang even alive?

“I brought you this,” he said, a fine silver chain hanging from his hands. “It’s Soundlands silver. For your stone.”

The chain glinted, and I sobbed. I held my hands to my face, and the noise came out of me like a keening animal. I couldn’t stop it, only pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes as I cried, the tears escaping around it.

I should never have come here. All of it, every horror of the last few days, broke from me in desperate sobs I tried to stop but could not.

Eventually, I removed my hands. I turned to look at him as my breath came in short hiccups. “I’m sorry. My eyes are going to be all red.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. I can fix you up just fine.”

“Thank you,” I said as he dropped the beautiful chain into my hands.

Plonius worked around me, removing the cord from my neck before dusting my face and neck with various creams and powders. When it came time for me to change, he gasped, looking at my shoulder. I craned my head and saw the wide reddish bruise blotching under the flesh.

Plonius ghosted a finger over it.

“Can you fix that up, too?” I asked, my voice monotonous.

The tailor nodded. “Of course.”

And he did.

When he had deemed me ready, he left to tend to my groom. I sat on the bed, waiting, as the morning light streamed into the room. Yet I felt as cold as the marble walls, one kind of prisoner about to walk to another life-long cell.

I had awoken once in the night and stared out the window to see the waxing moon high in the sky. Kallie’s bag would be waiting in the kitchen. I could go, alone. Leave Seth in his tower, leave Hanindred to this family’s mercy. But what life would that be?

There was nothing out there for me, no adventure worth more to me than my loved ones. And now, unbidden, Lang also came to mind. I wanted to know he was alright, that his wretch of a brother hadn’t killed him.

No, whatever I would do next, whatever I had the power to change in this role laid before me, I had to see it through. I would not let my husband hurt my dragon, and I would not let the rest of them hurt my best friend. I had to stay.

Daffinia arrived, a bouquet in her hands. She fell into a curtsy, her face betraying no recollection of our last encounter when she had failed to kill Hanin. “Are you ready?”

I stood, ensuring the many luscious folds of my Mephluan-white dress fell as they should.

I was hungry, for no one had brought me breakfast today, yet I would not tell her that.

My knee ached as I walked over to her, but I refused to limp.

I took the flowers from her, holding them to my chest. My hands barely shook. “I’m ready.”

She led the way, and at this point, if she had poisoned the flowers themselves, I would have seen it as Fate’s touch and allowed that strange escape.

My dress was heavy, caging me just as firmly as my groom intended, with no chance of running away.

Daffinia maintained a firm pace, and keeping up with her took nearly all of my attention as the pointed shoes pinched my toes and the long train of the dress dragged against the stone.

At the staircase, it was harder still, my dress snagging and catching as I descended.

But we reached the foyer, and several more ladies' maids filtered to my side, helping to hold the weighted stretch of fabric trailing behind me.

Featherlight touches arranged the gauzy veil and untangled a string of white beads by my right cheek.

From here, the path was laid out: a golden runner lining the hall, strewn with flowers, leading to a set of closed doors. The throne room. A room I’d never been in. And now, the home of my defeat.

As they fussed around me, Daffinia spoke low beside me.

“Walk along the runner, and the guards will open the doors.

When you walk in, there will be three aisles.

You walk down the central one. Four men, usually the bride and groom's family members, will walk down the other two. In your case…” I raised an eyebrow as she trailed off.

She rolled back her shoulders. “You represent Mephluan, the central muse, and they are the rest of the Five. Stay at the same pace as them. When you get to the front, stand to the left of the priest.”

I repeated the instructions. “Middle lane, walk slow, stand on the left.”

She nodded. “The groom will then enter along the central lane.”

“So there are six.” The words spilled over, a product of my complete lack of sleep.

Daffinia only blinked.

“We represent the Five, then a sixth arrives,” I mused, like the woman I was modelled after.

She looked at me with a faint distaste. “The groom is as the archer from the tale, coming to claim his muse.”

Ah, I thought. That made perfect sense. Even our wedding was a fable of itself.

I stepped across the runner and two of the maids helped me with my train, positioning it perfectly behind me. Ahead, the huge wooden doors loomed twenty feet high, carved with stories of the Sightlands, from Edrin and his flock of beasts, to the whirlpool of Oktorok.

To the left and right, smaller doors, maybe only eight or nine feet apart. Before each, two men stood. On the left, two men I barely recognised. One, I thought I had seen at the ball, and the other was the palest man I’d seen outside of Eavenfold.

On the right, I stiffened. King Braxthorn stood, staring at me impassively. Behind him, a young squire.

If one was supposed to be my own family, of which I had none they could call upon, and the other was supposed to be my groom’s family. Why was Lang not with Braxthorn?

Daffinia was back at the stairs, watching me warily. I beckoned her over, and she approached with no small reluctance.

“My lady?” she asked, her voice curling.

“Where is the prince?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he be there? As the groom’s family?”

Her mouth pursed as if she’d just eaten a lemon. “He’s in the infirmary.”

The infirmary. By my blood. Had the guards not put a stop to it?

I grabbed Daffinia’s hand. Not for any warmth or need for her reassurance, but I had to know the truth from her weaselly mouth.

Duty, pride, and vanity clouded her like a constant mist, the tenets of emotion she clung to.

Beneath that, I felt the present, her irritation and jealousy.

“How bad is he?” I asked.

Fear spiked, cloaked by an unwelcome anxiety. Daffinia was nervous about Lang’s state, and it didn’t seem she was one to worry for nothing.

I pulled my hand away, the answer clear enough. It was bad.

My throat tightened. Would that be the last time I would use my power?

I had no idea if marrying the wrong man would Break my Fate in an instant, or if I would be this forever, awaiting the only marriage that would ever make me whole, watching as the victor of the Laithcart Games married someone else. If he ever recovered.

He would, he had to. Lang was strong. His brother would not have killed him.

And yet, everyone who touched me ended up hurt. Perhaps I was the ghost girl after all, the ill omen the men of Eavenfold had long declared me to be. It was never Sollie who cursed the West Wing. It was always me. The Moontouch should have never come to me, and I knew it was never meant to.

But then the fanfare of trumpets started from within the room, and Daffinia told me to walk, and all of a sudden, there was nothing left to do but meet my destiny. I stumbled forwards one step, and the guards opened the huge doors.

The next person my curse would touch would deserve it. Banrillen might cage me with walls, but I had been hidden and despised before and found moments of light. I would find them again.

My breath steadied, and it was Thread Ersimmon now who came to me. Chin up , he would have told me. You’re about to become a princess.

The room was excessively splendorous, with walls so white they looked like the moon, and arcing, dark mahogany beams meeting at a point three floors above me. I could not see but for the flowers everywhere, an explosive rainbow of blossoms attached to every surface.

The doors creaked and then stopped, and when I moved this time, I did not stumble, not even as the hushed whispers of the congregation flooded me, not even as their heads turned to judge me, and not even as the arena of the flowers crowding the edge of each wooden bench overwhelmed me and I could taste the iron tang of my own blood from biting my own cheek too hard .

I walked like a princess should, my head high and my shoulders back. Even as I heard the whispers, ‘Euphon girl’ and ‘commoner’, I did not react. This was my castle now, too.